Apple had made an announcement at the WWDC about the launch of new iMacs in 2017. This announcement had given us the hope that Apple will revive a popular feature called the Target Display.

According to a report, the new 2017 iMacs will not support Target Display mode. (Image: Apple)

Apple had made an announcement at the WWDC about the launch of new iMacs in 2017. This announcement had given us the hope that Apple will revive a popular feature called the Target Display. However, according to a report in AppleInsider, new 2017 iMacs will not support Target Display mode. An Apple spokesperson was cited as saying that the feature may never make a re-appearance. Meanwhile, according to an analytical report in ZDNet, a fully loaded iMac Pro can cost more than $17,000, which is a huge amount even by Apple standards.

Target Display mode enabled Apple users to connect the MacBook to an iMac using a Thunderbolt cable. Users were able to use the iMac as an external display. Using a basic keyboard combo, people could easily switch to and fro between showing the iMac’s own screen, and the laptop’s display. This feature was a considered a good option for workflow boost for users with this specific configuration. One could let the iMac do double duty and it also gave a second life to an older iMac which could not be used in any other way. The hype around Apple’s move to drop support for Target Display mode altogether with the 2015 iMac was considered a perplexing decision for most users. However effective the feature was, Apple announced that Target Display mode was dropped altogether in 2015 (it had previously chopped the feature from 2014’s 27-inch 5K Retina iMac models).

The reason given at the time was a technical one, the inability of Thunderbolt 2 to handle the amount of data needed to drive a 5K display. However, the new 2017 iMacs have Thunderbolt 3, which offers plenty of bandwidth. So the technical issue is no longer a roadblock. Instead, it seems like Apple is just not interested in supporting the feature –which makes even less sense given it no longer sells an external display.

Meanwhile, Apple had made an announcement at the WWDC that the iMac Pro will be arriving later this year, and it had also revealed that the starting price for the most affordable configuration would cost $4,999. However, there was no information about the top-of-the-range configuration. Here is a list of specifications which are expected in the fully loaded iMac Pro:

An 8-core Intel chip for the entry-level model, with a price tag of $419 per chip. An 18-core Xeon processor, with an estimated price of over $2,000. Apple adds another 75 per cent over the standard price of components, so the processor alone could now cost no lesser than $4,000. The base model can come with 32GB of RAM, and a final price for the memory upgrade of around $2,700 in the 128GB model. Apple is using a Samsung M.2 flash SSD on the MacBook Pro, and boosting capacity to 4TB and adding company’s own markup can send the price to $3,600. Finally, the graphics card, expected to be the Radeon Pro Vega can cost over $2,000. According to the ZDNet’s report, all these can send the price tag of Apple iMac Pro to more than $17,000.